Category Archives: cybersafety

Feb 7th is Safer Internet Day across the world, not only for students but for all who use the internet – whether beginners or experienced users.

Our Department of Education and Training in partnership with the Office of the Children’s eSafety Commission organised several webinars on Safer Internet Use. Read more here. These webinars were online and free.

Another exciting opportunity was offered to schools in Victoria, to apply for the opportunity to bring 2 female students from year 10 to work with Facebook and Instagram in their new Melbourne offices in the Docklands discussing the topic – Safety in the Age of Disappearing Media. Much to their excitement, two of our year 10 girls were accepted into the workshop and I accompanied them. The hashtag used is #girltakeover with the discussions being on encouraging them to be the power for change and make the internet and even more positive place to be, especially in regard to social media. Facebook and Instagram sponsored this event and were interested in getting feedback from this age group as all too often it is adults who are vocal and dominant.

There were fun activities for them to start with enabling them to get to meet the other students, gain confidence and have fun, in preparation for the ‘hard fun’ about to begin.

Some of the great advice given once the day formally began included:-

Best filters that exist are between your brain.

Disappearing media does not happen – it is there forever but it can be rewritten

be empowered, be fierce, be strong, control your own brand.

Facebook and other sites create great privacy settings so ues them – block, mute where necessary!

why misunderstandings occur, why stories might be change and the trust that goes into the moment of sharing.

the challenges of sharing media eg snapchat, instagram story.

Trust is put into ‘just a moment’, will people understand the context of what your are sharing, screenshot content which is supposed to be deletable. Platforms are evolving all the time. Instagram has live story now to create real connections. T is all aoubt likes – adds new pressures. Doesnt have to be perfect. Deletaable media. Share moment which are not to be massively shared. Can put lots out there without spamming.Our intentions are temporary and private but can be made public. You are not being humiliated – they are.

A cartoonist captured many of the activities and events of the day.

As we all love social media – there is a need to talk about all that we love in this world. Expectations as women what we want out there, how it should be respected etc. The girls will come back to school and take on a leadership role sharing what they experienced, seeking further feedback and keeping conversations open at school on positive and safe social media spaces.

Primary students, secondary students, teachers and parents were given separate sessions in an opportunity to listen to Greg Gebhart from Cyber Smart. His presentations were filled with information, advice and case studies, tailored to the different audiences and had a powerful impact on all sectors in his quest for us to become cybersmart.

Children and teenagers are forging ahead using apps for social networking that many adults have not heard of. However, it was reassuring to learn that the majority of children and young people are not engaged in risky behaviour.

Exposure doesn’t always mean harm – it is simply part of a learning experience.

Following are my notes taken from several of the presentations.

Apps that students of all ages are using in 2014:-

Facebook: (age 13+) – there is shift away from Facebook by students as grandparents are increasingly using FB.

Instagram (age 13+) an app or site to share photos (like an online photo album) Can customize and choose private and public. If public then google images will add it to their site

Kik (17+) is instant messaging, photo sharing and audio. You don’t have to have a mobile phone as it can put on ipod, iPad etc and send msgs to a mobile phone free of charge. 30-40% of primary kids in primary school use it. Generally 85% of kids in secondary school. Great care required : cannot hide profile, set privacy settings. It is a legal site to trade and share pornography. Cannot block others. Most kids in kik will have a sex offender contact them at some stage. Approx. 40% of primary kids in our school with kik said they had been contacted.

Youtube is still very popular – but as kids like to make their own videos they are moving out to vine.

Vine – Most people watch 30-60 secs of a video and if they don’t like it, get out and don’t add a “like” to the video. But vine is only 6 secs in length – can get thousands more likes than FB on vine. Behaviours of risk is becoming noticeable.

Tumblr (blogging and sharing) was 2nd most popular site last year but is now 50th

Snapchat is photo sharing site – go from device to device but self destructs after a short time. Popular because photos are not stored on device. But girls use it for naked photos and selfies Snapchat alerts you a copy has been made with screen capture. But copies can be made with other apps eg snap-hack pro, snapcapture etc

Increase in using apple products – students are making folder called school work and hiding stuff from parents and teachers in the school work folder. Growth in calculators – CI calculator or my calculator. If type up 4 digit code you got when set it up, you can store photos in private folder.

Pen in pocket has high definition camera and used to video teacher. Now internet watches – called iTime, Samsung, pebble. Can do kik, Instagram on phone via watches. New Samsung is third update, has high definition camera as well

Hashtags in Instagram – keep settings tight. Take care with hashtags as this makes the images public. Most popular hashtag is #love. It this is used on photo goes to the biggest photo album in the world. It is the type of photos hashtagged that is the issue

Lock sites down as much as possible. Customise privacy settings>report and block. Students are good at screen captures. Most modern mobile phones can block individual numbers or random numbers. HTC and Samsung – can disable phones during night time so children do not receive phone calls at night.

The ACMA cybersafety website has a support button to a kids helpline . It also has a chat box. Make sure students know the number

Modelling the behaviours

Turn ipad off

Follow policy relating to parent/student connections. Lock down your photos. Ensure any posts align with high ethical standards – so even if locked down it can become public

It is Safer Internet Use Day today and the Topic is “Let’s Build a Safer Internet Together”. Our Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development organised a webinar for all interested Victorian classrooms. The presenter was Greg Gebhart from Cybersmart ACMA who spoke on “Let’s Build a Safer Internet Together”. The session went for 45 mins and was highly interactive which is essential to student engagement in a virtual environment.

Year 5 and 6 are engaged

Questions and polls were posed at varying intervals. Class answers were placed in the chat. The presentation included lots of graphics and images and Greg’s presentation style was also engaging. When a round of applause was called for at the end, many used the virtual clapping hand but it was also exciting to hear real applause and cheers from classes who turned on their microphones.

Isn’t technology exciting? This is a wonderful use of technology that has engaged and embraced many students across Victoria simultaneously. To keep the conversations going, innovative Sandy Phillips has created a blog where students will actually be able to “Build a Safer Internet” and share their ideas, experiences and opinions. It is rich in resources so check out each of the pages as well as the posts and interact where possible. Below are the questions that Sandy uses to get discussions going with students and others.

It was with interest that I listened to another staff member tell me about the interesting email he had recieved inviting him to take part in a survey with one of or largest grocery chains in Australia. Thinking this could be interesting to share with my classes to teach authenticity of websites, I shared it with my classes this week -even my grade 4/5 ICT class. It worked really well with students enthausiastically sifting through the pluses, minuses and interesting components. (The active link has been removed so that others may not be mislead).

You have been selected to access the Woolworths 5 questions Survey and win a $50.00 gift certificate.

Please click here and complete the form to receive your reward. Thank you.

This is an automated message. Please do not reply.Message Id: 0019268154-wmrtsrv.

PYWQEUWXQXLBDRVUQLBYRPCIIHHCHZPYILFRNY

Here is what it looked like:

I printed off the email msg below and got some classes to read the email and highlight anything that caught their attention. What was interesting, what was a little concerning etc. We then discussed as a class.

With another group, they drew up a table in MS Word with the headings plus, minus and interesting. Under each heading they added their findings. They were given 5 minutes to do this. Then discussed as a group.

We also discussed why the clickable link was a potentially dangerous option. I did click on the link after warning them. This took me to the survey form. Below are two screen shots of the actual survey. Students read this, then talked about the interesting aspects of it and the authenticity of the site.

There were so many discussion points arising from this email

authentication

personal identity

how to protect personal identity

potential dangers of clickable links

scams, phish, potential outcomes of clicking on suspicious links

vulnerable people etc

Please feel free to use the screen grabs, but take care with any clickable link and do not submit that survey form or click on next.

About the session: Taking up from past presentations on TechTalk Tuesdays this session Tony Richards (@itmadesimple) will be lead discussions on the growing challenge of cyber smarts, digital footprints, online reputations and how we are dealing with these issues on a personal, professional and school community level. Participants will explore and discuss ideas that have worked and those that have not, looking to share our knowledge and experience, please come prepared to share, argue and challenge.

About the Presenter: Mr Tony Richards has had a long and varied involvement with ICT in education. He has worked across a large range of environments, including time as a primary classroom teacher, technology advisor, network manager and developer, Distance Education Technology project manager, executive officer with ICTEV subject association, new media specialist with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, Director of Information Technology with Northern Territory DET, blogger, podcaster on the Ed Tech Crew. View LinkedIn profile

___________________________________________________________

Here is the link to the recording. This was such a fabulous, thought provoking session. Unfortunately, we had some technical issues uploading the presentation, so the session was shortened. However, Tony has agreed to return in June to complete the full session.

Please meet the students from my classes – they include years 7 through to years 9/10 ICT and some of my accounting students from years 11 and 12.
Can you find their names, their ages, their personal details from the pics below? No? Therefore they are really safe when using avatars as computer identities when working online.

About Me

G'day! I am a secondary teacher in a small rural prep to year 12 school in Australia. I teach Information Technology and Accounting and am passionate about learning, immersing technology in the classroom, rural education and global education.
ef="https://murcha.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/annemirtschin.png">